Remembering Petrona Needs You!

Regular visitors to Euro Crime will know of Maxine Clarke and her welcome contributions to this blog and many others. She died in December after a long illness and to remember her and in the spirit of encouraging and promoting the crime fiction she loved, several initiatives have been set up including two under the umbrella of the blog Petrona Remembered.

Firstly, starting next month on Petrona Remembered, weekly posts will be released about a favourite crime novel. And here's where we need your help. From the blog:

"Our first aim is to develop a resource for current and future fans of the genre and we want you to help us. We’re asking writers, bloggers, readers, translators and anyone else who loves a crime or mystery novel to send us a submission about that book. It can be a a review, a pitch, a love letter, a poem or, a video. Or something else entirely. Each week we’ll post a new submission and, over time, this site will become a jumping off point to a world of much-loved crime fiction."

So, gentle readers of this blog, I do hope you'll have a look around Petrona Remembered and consider contributing to this new venture which is inspired by Books to Die For (edited by John Connolly and Declan Burke). It's open to anyone who wants to contribute regardless of whether they knew Maxine or not.

The second string, is the creation of a new annual award for Scandinavian Crime Fiction (available in English), called The Petrona Award. The guidelines and suchlike are still being fine-tuned but expect an announcement soon.

The third project is being overseen by Margot Kinberg who is collating a short story anthology with proceeds to Maxine's chosen charity.

From Margot's blog:

Maxine always told me I ought to have my sleuth Joel Williams solve the murder of a publisher, editor or reviewer. Well, Maxine, I’m going to take your advice. The short story collection I have in mind will focus on the world of writing, publishing and editing. Maxine was among other things a highly skilled editor, so I think she’d appreciate the kinds of things that go on in that world that can lead to murder and mayhem.

More details on what's required of your short story or how to spread the word can be found on Margot's blog